


From Pieces of Broken Memories

by Senor_Sparklefingers



Series: A Treatise on Godhood [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AUish, Gen, cr1 spoilers, death god!Vax, discussion of religion, dnd deities, post-cr1, post-search for bob, post-search for grog, sorry I'm back on my bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 13:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19426993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senor_Sparklefingers/pseuds/Senor_Sparklefingers
Summary: Propertius, Elegies 3. 18 ff :But for you, may the ferryman convey to the place whither he gives passage to the shades of the righteous the body no longer tenanted by your soul.(A discussion on the evolution and nature of worship)





	From Pieces of Broken Memories

When we talk of the gods and of their worship, at least from a historical perspective, we don’t often speak of their first worshipers. Our ancestors, their children, fresh faced and afraid in a world full of chaos and terrors, a world that did not wish to be tamed. So much of our early history from the days before the Calamity, before the Age of Arcanum, is lost and obscured, and we may never know the truth of what those first followers, those first children of the Creators, thought of the gods who gave them life and let them loose into a harsh and unforgiving world. Did they look up to them in the hopes that through their guidance and teaching, they would be saved? Did they damn them for giving them life in the first place? How did they set down their first temples and begin to worship?

Scholars and academics can, and will, debate these questions back and forth, basing arguments on scraps of evidence and tales passed down to them by generations passed. There is nothing that survives, after all, to tell us the truth. Perhaps it is better that way.

These are my thoughts on the matter:

The early worshippers of the gods, both the Prime Deities and the Betrayer Gods, lived in an age when the gods walked among them. There was no Divine Gate. No barrier separating a cleric or paladin from the object of their power and worship. No bars to hold back the tide of true evil...though we must remember, as difficult as it is, that once upon a time there was good in the hearts of the Betrayers, that the divide and the betrayal came from a place of desperation, heartbreak, madness. Ah, but I digress. 

The gods were not separate, thoughtless ideas, but beings, real and tangible. That fact does not change their nature or their powers, but it does make one wonder about the early temples and early ceremonies.

Did the gods, who’s children we are, love us as a parent loves a child? Did they consider their clerics and paladins friends and allies? How does one worship somebody who they know, who they called friend?

Once again, let us turn and look to the Ferryman.

The city of Whitestone is surrounded by the Parchwood, a dense forest that lies and surrounds the base of the Alabaster Sierras. Like many forests, the topographical makeup is not consistent. Parts of it are heavily wooded, parts are less dense and more glade line, parts closer to the base of the mountains are lined with caves and rockier terrain, etc. Areas of the woods that are closest to the city have become somewhat tamed, simply due to the nature of civilization being so close by.

In the Parchwood, not too far from the city of Whitestone, there is a bench.

The bench sits alone in a clearing, a beautiful area surrounded by pine trees. Snowdrops, those first flowers of spring, blanket the ground in white, long after they should have given way to more colorful, more seasonally appropriate flowers. They linger on until the snow comes, and one cannot tell where the blossoms end and the ice begins.

It is not too far from the city, and anyone who wishes to visit it can, simply walking along the trails until the trees give way. Those who have visited it have reported hearing the howling of wolves, though to this date nobody has actually  _ seen _ a wolf, nor have there been reports of any attacks in the area on farmers or travellers.

(There was another champion, once. He, too, was good hearted and strong, fierce and brave and  _ loved _ . Though he has been gone for a long time, Galdric remains. He cannot protect his friend any longer. All he can do is wait until they are reunited, and guard those who follow the one who came after him.

Purvan would be proud, I believe.)

The bench itself is a simple thing. Carved out of a light, soft wood, it’s clear that while it wasn’t made by a professional, a great deal of love and care went into its carving. Each knot, each imperfection, they do not take away from the beauty of the piece but merely add to it. After all, the person this bench was carved by, the person this bench was cared  _ for _ ...they were not perfect. They are not perfect. But all of the good outweighs the bad.

There is no name carved anywhere on the bench. No indication as to who made it, or why, or for whom. The only decoration on the bench can be found on the headboard.

Three daggers, carved in intricate detail, each one unique from the others, represented as close to life as possible. Below them, a feather, resting gently forever in the wood.

(There is a name, carved below the feather in an unsteady, unsure hand, that stopped once or twice to wipe away an errant tear, to sniffle and fight back the tide of grief. I will not say that name. It is not my place.)

The area is peaceful and quiet, a perfect place to come and sit and reflect. To watch as the many ravens of Whitestone fly in the air, or to observe them as they make their nests among the trees.

It does not seem like a temple. At least not in the way that we have all come to view temples and shrines to the gods.

(He would want it that way, I think.)

The early worship of the Matron of Ravens is relatively undocumented and unknown, as are the early temples made to Her. General assumption holds that they did not differ too much from Her modern houses of worship...a pool of blood for communion, images of the raven standing in Her place, located either in or near a graveyard or place of final rest…

We also know that once, the Matron was mortal. The first mortal to ascend to godhood.

Who She was before She struck down the old god of death has long been forgotten and lost, almost certainly on purpose. Only the Raven Queen, the Matrons, the weaver of the threads of fate and the harbinger of winter remains.

But before all that...there was a woman.

Once, there was a person who had a family, who lived among others like her. Who had friends, who smiled and laughed and was so beautifully, painfully,  _ human _ .

(She probably wouldn’t like me telling you this. But Her love for her champion, Her pride at his rise, outweighs Her discomfort about the past, and so, I think She will forgive me.)

When She ascended, there were still those living who knew her name, who knew and cherished the woman they had known. Those early temples were made to the new goddess of death and fate, but those who had loved Her before all that left their own touches to that long lost and forgotten person. While they lived, so did she.

As I have said, belief is a tricky thing. Simply because one believes the sky is orange, or that two plus two equals fish, that belief alone does not make it so. Similarly, loving and grieving and memorializing a lost loved one does not lead to them taking their first steps towards godhood. After all, the Ferryman was not the first champion the Matron had, nor will he likely be the last. What makes him different? What allowed him to ascend where others haven’t?

Perhaps it was the prayers and continued love of those who knew him.

A sister, who fed the ravens of Whitestone, who prayed at the temple of the goddess who took her brother, who prayed to them both. A lover, planting a feather in the roots of a tree, speaking with the raven who visits her every day. A sister who becomes as quick and sharp and silent as he had ever been, and a father who grieves and regrets more than he will ever say.

A family, that does everything to ensure his name is not forgotten.

Perhaps it was the faith of those who did not know him personally, who only knew him as a man who killed a cinder king, who gave everything to stop the Whispered One. Who helped to liberate a city from the undead long before he became Her champion.

Perhaps it was the souls he ushered onto the other side, or the souls he helped back to this one. The souls who wait for judgement, for resurrection, who he comforts with jokes and smiles and easy laughter. 

Wood rots. Stone crumbles. Plants wither and die. Someday, that bench in the clearing in Whitestone will not be there, and, like so many of the first temples to the gods, the first temple to the Ferryman, the Reaper, the Everwatching Raven, the Prince of Crows, will be lost as well.

His first name, like that of the Matron, will also someday be lost.

But the faith of his followers will have left a mark on that land, on that first temple that was born from the grief of a family, the respect of a friend, and the love of a hero. We cannot say for sure if this is how it was with the first temples to the Matron, or to the other Prime Deities, or even to those early followers of the Betrayer Gods. 

But it is a nice thought, to think that when the gods walked among us, they were loved and respected as people. Perhaps that was all that was needed, to make those first temples the gods once called home.

A tombstone is far too final, indeed...

  
  


_ (from ‘A Treatise on Godhood, The Cult of the Ferryman, and the Implications of New Deities’, L.Toluse.) _


End file.
